Highlights are to include five Jerry Garcia guitars, “finished and working manuscripts” for classic Dead songs, gear from the Owsley “Wall of Sound” PA system, and artworks such as Fillmore posters and album graphics.

The Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California-Santa Cruz “loaned a significant number of items” from its collection, the Rock Hall said. Rock Hall curator Howard Kramer said he had full access to the Dead’s warehouse.

Longtime Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart will perform at the exhibit opening. One of his psychedelic custom-painted drum kits will among the museum offerings.

The first major showing of the Grateful Dead archives at the University of California Santa Cruz was at the New-York Historical Museum in early 2010.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibition “Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip” runs through December at the Cleveland, Ohio, museum.

Producer/engineer Glyn Johns, who worked with the heaviest of the British psychedelic rock bands, also is to be honored April 14 in Cleveland.

Beastie Boys, Guns N’ Roses, Laura Nyro and Red Hot Chili Peppers filled out the list of Rock Hall inductees. Faces (with Rod Stewart) share the honor with the band’s earlier incarnation, the Small Faces.

The early influencer nod went to bluesman Freddy King, the only black artist to be honored this year. Songwriter/TV rock producer Don Kirshner (“The Monkees”) is to be memorialized in the non-performer slot.

Rock producers Johns and Tom Dowd, and New Orleans studio owner Cosimo Matassa are to receive awards for musical excellence.

Donovan, a nominee last year, was among the first recording artists to chart with psychedelic songs. He also was among the first long-haired British pop stars busted for drugs. The artist (pictured, top) was closely associated with the hippie movement and flower pop.

Donovan’s psychedelic singles include “Sunshine Superman,” “Mellow Yellow,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Barabajagal (Love Is Hot).”

The album “Sunshine Superman” was among the first rock works to feature the sitar. Donovan also flirted with jazz and Indian music, making for a heady musical brew that remains underappreciated among casual music fans.

The Small Faces first scored with the heavily flanged psychedelic single “Itchycoo Park,” a global smash in 1967 despite a BBC ban for its druggie lyrics.

A year later came the classic LP “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake,” an early concept album. Side 2 was devoted to an odd psychedelic fairy tale. Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane did the band’s heavy lifting until Marriott quit to form Humble Pie.

Then came the Faces, with three original members joined by up-and-coming vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood. The Faces’ sound shifted to inebriated good-time rock n’ roll. This line-up enjoyed a short but brilliant career, cut short by the demands of Stewart’s solo success and Wood’s wooing by the Rolling Stones.

Producer/engineer Tom Dowd was mostly known for his work on the classic Atlantic R&B recordings, but he also dabbled in psychedelia with acts like Cream, Wishbone Ash and Chicago. Dowd was one of the first engineers to take stereo seriously and to employ multitracking. He died a decade ago after a long run with Criterion Studios in Miami.

Producer/engineer Glyn Johns boasts a sterling resume when it comes to psychedelic music. His credits include the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Small Faces, the Who, Led Zeppelin and Family. He’s best known for his work with the Stones. Johns remains active, recently working with Ryan Adams.

Passed over for induction were the Cure, Heart, the Spinners, Donna Summers, Rufus with Chaka Khan, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and Eric B. & Rakim.

The 27th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is set for April 14 in Cleveland. The video will run on HBO in early May. A limited number of public tickets go on sale Dec. 17.

Psychedelic music is well represented in the Hall of Fame: Inductees include the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, the Yardbirds, the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Miles Davis, Traffic, Santana, Frank Zappa, the Doors and the Who.

On Oct. 17, the psychedelic heavies get the Rhino Handmade treatment with a live double-CD set recorded at the Fillmore East.

The CDs (and MP3s) capture the “classic” version of Iron Butterfly in April 1968, just after the band was rebuilt in the wake of their debut album. The album “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” would surface several months after these performances.

There are 22 songs recorded during a quartet of sets at the Bill Graham concert hall.

The line-up is singer/organist Doug Ingle, bassist Lee Dorman, teen guitarist Erik Brann and drummer Ron Bushy.

Here’s Rhino’s word on the audio for “Fillmore East 1968″:

The well-defined sound heard on these previously unreleased recordings is the result of the quality of the original tapes and the meticulous restoration used to prepare them for this project. Original recording engineer Lee Osborne recorded all the shows using a ½” four-track recorder running at 15 ips. Unfortunately, audio signal issues made the first two songs from the second set on April 26 unusable.

If those two songs were usable, they’d be repeats anyway. Like many collector’s sets, “Fillmore East 1968″ offers multiple versions of its tracks. (Alas, there is no repeat-free single CD.) “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” for instance, appears twice — in a 17:11 version and a slightly restrained 15:20 take.

The band’s monster closing number, “Iron Butterfly Theme,” shows up four times, running between 4 and 5 minutes. “Iron Butterfly Theme” is No. 30 on this site’s list of the top 100 psychedelic songs.

The Butterfly gave the New York audience a preview of two other “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” album songs, “Are You Happy” and “My Mirage.”

Other likely highlights are “Unconscious Power,” “So-Lo” and “Possession,” all from the debut album, “Heavy.”

The Rhino Handmade set is available for preorder at $40. No other retail sales.

The collector’s label also went psychedelic with “Box of Fudge” from Vanilla Fudge. We hold out much greater hopes for “Fillmore East 1968″ as Iron Butterfly is a vastly underrated band (with the Fudge vastly overrated).

The White Stripes’ version of “Signed D.C.” can be heard on YouTube (see bottom of post). Earlier, it was released as a 7-inch vinyl under the band’s From the Vault paid-subscription series, via Third Man Records.

A suitably rough recording, it features White on acoustic guitar and vocals, with Meg White (apparently) playing tambourine. There is no harmonica, as heard on Love’s recording.

White also released to YouTube his take on Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

In a similar vein, White’s band the Raconteurs previously covered British singer Terry Reid with “Rich Kid Blues,” originally released in 1969. (Reid, a bit of a raconteur himself, tells audiences that the popular 2008 cover inspired him to call up White in hopes of working together. White never called back, Reid says with a sheepish grin.)

“Signed D.C.” appeared on Love’s first album. John Einarson, who wrote the Lee biography “Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love,” describes the original track like so:

With its stark instrumentation, featuring just Arthur alone on acoustic guitar and harmonica, the song offered a harrowing anti-drug message drawn from the real-life experience of drummer Don Conka — the titular D.C.

“When I wrote the song, I heard the Animals’ ‘The House of the Rising Sun,’ ” Lee said in an interview. It was inspired by some of the people who hung out with the band in its early days — strung out on methadone or heroin.

The White Stripes’ “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” sounds a lot rougher than “Signed D.C.” with a bit of feedback and White’s tentative vocals. Meg White plods along on drums.

(Hat tip to Uncut.)

“I am lucky to be alive and to have such a crazy story to tell, full of wild adventures and creative machinations,” said Townshend, whose career with the Who and as a solo act bridges five decades. He turned 66 a few days ago.

Harper Collins has worldwide rights and expects to release the Townshend book in the fall of next year. The publisher did not specify a title, but it appears to “Who He?”

Townshend’s partner Roger Daltrey is bringing his current tour of the rock opera “Tommy” to North American in the fall, but its creator won’t be along this time out. “I will be there in spirit and Roger has my complete and most loving support,” Townshend said earlier.

Word of Townshend’s book project went wide via nasty publicity in 2003, when the songwriter was found to have accessed child pornography on a web site. Townshend explained that the kiddie porn was part of the research for the memoirs, which will cover the childhood years in which, he says, he was molested by a grandmother. Townshend was “cautioned” by police after a long investigation.

Townshend has a long history of playing benefits for children’s charities. His career quickly recovered from the scandal.

Books by Keith Richards and Steven Tyler are among the recent wave of rock autobiographies. Allman Brother Gregg Allman just announced a deal for his memoirs as well.

Townshend’s literary agent Ed Victor noted: “There are very few remaining gods of rock who have not written their memoirs. Pete Townshend is one of them. Now, at last, we will have his own story in his own words.”

Townshend added: “I am not my favorite subject, that will always be art and music, but whenever I write about my life and work I learn something. So the year ahead spent writing will also trigger the last vital bit of ‘growing up’ required by the now pensionable fellow who once wrote ‘I hope I die before I get old.’ ”

The Who is best known as a rock band with a flair for “maximum R&B,” but the band has sterling psychedelic credentials, starting with one of the first global hits in the genre, “I Can See for Miles,” which Townshend calls “the ultimate Who record.” The song “Armenia City in the Sky,” the concept album “The Who Sell Out” and parts of “Tommy” (such as “Sparks”) also have that psychedelic glimmer.

(photo by Phyllis Keating)

Four new Lips tunes will be implanted in a USB drive (memory stick) deep within the sticky brain. Listeners are encouraged to eat the candy skull, and then the brains (more than 7 pounds of gelatin, enjoy.) Extract the USB drive, find a way to clean it (good luck) and then insert into computer.

The band’s last release, “Two Blobs Fucking,” came out as a streaming single, with 12 separate mono parts designed to be played simultaneously on iPhones. The result: “lo-fi symphonic joy.” Lips fans have spent the past month and a half coming up with unique ways to play that one.

“I’d just like to release music all the time and just put it out in all kinds of weird formats and not just collect it until we’re ready to put out [an album] every two years or so,” Coyne told billboard.com. The songs also will come out on iTunes.

The Flaming Lips also plan to release “Heady Nuggs: The First 5 Warner Bros. Records 1992-2002″ on Record Store Day, April 16, 2011. The five catalog recordings are “Hit to Death In the Future Head” (1992), “Transmissions From the Satellite Heart” (1993), “Clouds Taste Metallic” (1995) and “The Soft Bulletin” (1990) and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (2002).

Speaking of the psychedelic “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” it could be the next rock album to try its luck on Broadway. The long-delayed project appears to be in pre-production.

The Flaming Lips are working with Southern California stage director Des McAnuff (“Jersey Boys”). He’s the guy who work-shopped the Who’s “Tommy” at the La Jolla Playhouse and brought the production to Broadway for a long successful run.

The “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” musical “really has become a perfect combination of my fantastical robot-world vision and (McAnuff’s) little, internal, humanistic version of what that music is,” Coyne told Billboard the other day.

The plot revolves around a dying girl (“Her name is Yoshimi, she’s a black-belt in karate”) who enters another dimension with a boyfriend and takes on her disease, which lurks there in the form of pink robots. Lips frontman Wayne Coyne told Entertainment Weekly (which apparently broke the story) in 2007 that the madness should play out along the lines of Terry Gilliam’s bizarre “Brazil.”

The Lips have continued to wave their freak flag over the years. They released a remake of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” in April 2010, billed as the Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches.

The bass player and songwriter suffered a heart attack Feb. 26 while diving off Catalina Island, friends said. He was participating in an annual clean-up event in Avalon.

While remaining active with the Electric Prunes, Tulin played in recent years with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Bill Corgan. He toured with Corgan’s side project Spirits in the Sly (a tribute to Sky Saxon) and played on some of the music for the Pumpkins’ evolving “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope” album.

With the “classic lineup” of the Electric Prunes, Tulin recorded the 1966 hit “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and appeared on all of that band’s albums. He wrote much of the Prunes’ material with singer James Lowe. The band reunited at the turn of the century and continued to tour and record.

The Electric Prunes were recording for a label headed by Smashing Pumpkins producer Kerry Brown, along with the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

As a studio musician, Tulin worked with Cher, Diana Ross, Kenny Loggins, Neil Diamond, and Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

Tulin and the Electric Prunes recorded “Pushin’ Too Hard” for a Saxon tribute album.

“We’re planning to design an interactive masterpiece,” the developer of an upcoming online Dead game says. It’s being described as “sort of a psychedelic journey through Grateful Dead history” and a “social game.”

Release is set for Aug. 1 with access via dead.net, Facebook and some game portals. The unnamed game will be free (in the Dead spirit) but in-game revenue models might emerge. Fans’ input is being sought.

“From the first click the player will enter into a universe of Grateful Dead music, sounds, and visuals,” developer Curious Sense vows. “Games and activities will reside within several regions of the world, each designed according to a theme from Grateful Dead lore — the Old West, space, San Francisco, Giza.”

Expect plenty of top-hatted skeletons and roses from the most iconic band of them all. The soundtrack will come from the Dead’s records. Game players apparently will be able to remix and mash-up the music. The animated sequence from “The Grateful Dead Movie” could be part of the action.

The Dead already have a trivia board game and have licensed three “packs” of songs to Rock Band. Then there are the jigsaw puzzles, “Steal Your Face” playing cards and an edition of Monopoly. No wonder someone wrote a book titled “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.”

North Carolina-based Curious Sense — which gets its name from a line in the Dead song “St. Stephen” — is working with Grateful Dead Productions and Rhino Entertainment, which manages the band’s intellectual property. The Deadhead-run gaming company has done work for REO Speedwagon and the record labels Island, Epic, Geffen and Def Jam.

The game developer’s website features a “Survey of the Grateful Dead Experience” that will test some fans’ attention spans. Questions include: “What is a Grateful Dead memory that you cherish?” and “What 5 songs give you a taste of the spectrum of their music?”

The five-year agreement sees EMI Music continuing to distribute and market the veteran psychedelic rock act’s catalog.

Individual Pink Floyd tracks will continue to be available via online retailers such as iTunes and Amazon, despite several U.K. court rulings last year favoring the band’s position that EMI did not have those rights.

“All legal disputes between the band and the company have been settled as a result of this new deal,” EMI said in announcing the Pink Floyd deal Jan. 4.

The band and record company go way back — to 1967. Both have been greatly enriched over the decades. The ubiquitous “The Dark Side of the Moon,” for example, has logged more time on the Billboard album charts than any other recording.

EMI Group CEO Roger Faxon said: “Pink Floyd are one of the most important and influential bands of all time and I know I speak for everyone at EMI when I say that it is a privilege to have the opportunity to work with them. We’re looking forward to continuing to help the band reach new and existing fans through their incredible body of work.”

The band recorded 14 studio and three live albums before going their separate ways.

Pink Floyd’s early 2010 legal victory over EMI was affirmed by a British appeals court in mid-December. The band sued the label over its online sales of individual tracks from albums such as “The Wall” and “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Pink Floyd had argued successfully that under a 1999 contract, EMI had rights to bring the psychedelic rock group’s albums to market — but not sliced into separate tracks, as is typically done on download music sites. Pink Floyd’s songs often flowed thematically into each other on their psychedelic concept albums.

In March, the chancellor of Britain’s High Court said the band had the right to defend “the artistic integrity” of its albums in both traditional and online media. EMI appealed the court’s decision at the time. Lawyers had said the legal action was largely to establish ownership of the digital tracks.

Meanwhile, ex-frontman Roger Walters said he’ll be filming the London stand of his “The Wall” tour for video release.

Doug Ingle, Lee Dorman and Ron Bushy filed the suit against several WMG entities Tuesday in New York state Supreme Court. They’re seeking almost a quarter million dollars in payments, according to Bloomberg News. The “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” song and album are by far the most valuable recordings in the group’s catalog.

Dorman v. Atlantic Recording Corp. pits the 1960s band against the record label that made them famous. Atlantic is now part of WMG, along with Elektra Entertainment Group and Warner/Chappell Music, also named in the complaint.

Guitarist Erik Brann, the fourth member of that incarnation of the band, died in 2003. (Iron Butterfly underwent numerous personnel changes, both before and after “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.”)

Atlantic, under founder Ahmet Ertegun, released “In-a-Dadda-Da-Vida” the album in June 1968. The 17-minute title track became a sensation, and an edited version appeared as a single a month later.

The “In-a-Dadda-Da-Vida” lineup of Iron Butterfly (that is now suing) participated in Atlantic’s 40th anniversary concert in the late 1980s. Dorman and Bushy have kept the band going over the decades, but Iron Butterfly was widely considered Ingle’s band. The singer/organist wrote “In-a-Dadda-Da-Vida.”

Meanwhile, Pink Floyd’s recent legal victory over EMI was affirmed by a British appeals court on Tuesday. The band sued longtime label EMI over its online sales of individual tracks from albums such as “The Wall” and “Dark Side of the Moon.”

(Update: Pink Floyd and EMI settled their differences and announced a new five-year deal on Dec. 4, 2011.)

Pink Floyd argued successfully that under a 1999 contract, EMI had rights to bring the psychedelic rock group’s albums to market but not cut up as separate tracks, as is typically done on download music sites. Pink Floyd’s songs often flowed thematically into each other on their concept albums.

In March, the chancellor of Britain’s High Court said the had the right to defend “the artistic integrity” of its albums in both traditional and online media. EMI appealed the court’s decision at the time.

Both iTunes and Amazon had individual Pink Floyd tracks for sale several days after the latest ruling.

EMI and Pink Floyd remain at legal odds over royalties and other aspects of their longtime business relationship, which began in 1967.

(Hat tip to David McLaughlin of Bloomberg.)